


Invincible Summer

by Polly_Lynn



Series: So Much Like Stars [2]
Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Family, Injury Recovery, Married Couple, Parenthood, Pregnancy, Recovery, Romance, Solstice, Summer Solstice, Travel, Winter Solstice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 00:54:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11264634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: She'll never get over the jet lag. The thought makes its languorous way through her mind. It’s high melodrama, almost worthy of him. An unspeakably ungrateful internal whinge, given the fact that she's on the other side of the world, in the snuggest, most inviting room imaginable.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why the solstice always nudges at my brain, but it does. I have a series of stories I've written on/about solstice, but this one ended up a sequel to an earlier story that came from a prompt on tumblr. Future!Fic, relative to Crossfire. Set June 20th/21st-ish of 2017.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She'll never get over the jet lag. The thought makes its languorous way through her mind. It’s high melodrama, almost worthy of him. An unspeakably ungrateful internal whinge, given the fact that she's on the other side of the world, in the snuggest, most inviting room imaginable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why the solstice always nudges at my brain, but it does. I have a series of stories I've written on/about solstice, but this one ended up a sequel to an earlier story that came from a prompt on tumblr. Future!Fic, relative to Crossfire. Set June 20th/21st-ish of 2017.

In the depth of winter

I finally learned that there was

in me an invincible summer.

— Albert Camus

* * *

 

She'll never get over the jet lag.

The thought makes its languorous way through her mind. It’s high melodrama, almost worthy of him. An unspeakably ungrateful internal whinge, given the fact that she's on the other side of the world, in the snuggest, most inviting room imaginable. She's in a bed more comfortable than she dreamed a bed could be. She's got jet lag to get over and time to get over it. 

She's got time.

She knots her fists together, a tight, fierce, _grateful_ , press at her own ribs that has her bubbling up, closer to waking. She reminds herself she's got time. She wills herself to believe that and every other miracle that's brought her to this moment, and it works. It lasts, and she's utterly content. 

But she'll still never get over the jet lag. 

She turns on her side, a prelude to real movement, or so she tells herself, but details filter in through pleasantly sluggish senses, and she's transfixed. The pop and hiss of a low fire in the grate. The languid dance of its flames across the dark, polished wood of the armoire. Her watch missing from the bedside table. _His_ watch missing, and she doesn't have to roll over to know that. 

"The tick." She yawns out loud. She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes and tries to make sense of it. "The tick is missing."

"The tick?" 

She hears his smile before she sees it. Long before, because she's left her vision filled with stars, but it clears and then there's nothing but him. Tall and broad shouldered. Weary and smiling. 

"The tick was missing," she says, grabbing on to the chain of her own logic. "The fire was new, so you were here." There's more. She frowns with the effort of it. Brightens as the last detail snaps into place. "You were in the kitchen. You were making coffee. Mystery solved."

"Ooh, you're good." He drops to the edge of the bed, bringing the mug up into her sideways field of view. "Jet lagged, hitchhiker on board, you are still good, Beckett."

"Don't call it a hitchhiker." Annoyance sends her scooting upright. Pulling her knees up and snatching the mug from him.  

"Don't call her an it," he shoots back. 

“You don’t know it’s a her,” she mutters, distracted by the heavenly scent wafting up. The heavenly scent that makes her nauseous, then doesn’t, then does. “What if it’s not? You don’t know anything about raising a him.” 

She’s being sour. Impossible, but he’s unfazed.  

“One: I know she's a her. Two: You don’t know a thing about raising _either,_ Captain Not-a-Baby-Person.” He dumps over on to an elbow whisks the covers down to her thighs. He takes advantage. Invades her personal space, knowing she has to mind the scalding hot mug. Knowing that it's hard for even him to annoy her enough that she'll jeopardize her one, precious cup. “Three: Him. Her. Doesn’t matter. We’re an unbeatable team.” 

It's a statement of fact for him. Irrefutable, and it does her a world of good, like always. His unshakable faith lays her own anxieties to rest before she's even named them. She uncurls the fingers of one hand from around the mug to rest a palm against his cheek. 

He hasn’t shaved, and the drag of stubble against her skin sends a shiver down her spine. More than just that—the physical sensation—memory sends a shiver down her spine. A white dress shirt open well past his throat. The cultivated, careless look that pissed her off and made the air between them crackle. 

She traces the sunburst of lines from the corner of his eye outward, from then to now. She thinks of the scars on his chest. On her own. The story of more than just years both their bodies tell and tell again. They’re an unbeatable team. They are. 

“What?” he asks, lines deepening as he studies her face. Tries to read her. 

“Nothing.” She drags her nails along his jaw. Smiles at the way he tips his chin up to press closer. “What time is it?” 

"Almost sunrise." He pulls up the hem of her t-shirt to stage whisper right into her skin. "Good job, Double H.” 

"Sunrise!" She nearly chokes on the hot swallow of coffee. "That's, like, eight o'clock!"

"Eight thirteen today," he says smugly. He digs in his jeans pocket, jostling the bed, forcing her to hold her hands high, well clear of the chaos he’s creating. He produces her dad's watch with a flourish. "Eight . . . we'll call it oh-seven now, and judging by that whole owl blink you've got going on, _and_ the fact that you're not shot-gunning that coffee, you've been awake maybe three, four minutes." He sketches in the air like its a chalkboard "Minus one-ish when you nodded off mid-sentence, that's a solid seven hours. A win for me and the ride-along."

He smacks a kiss just above her belly-button, and she laughs. She'd like to strangle him and leap out of the bed and . . . _do things._ Make up for time lost sleeping, when there's the whole other side of the world to see, but she laughs instead. 

“Castle. We need to decide . . .” 

“Not right now.” He rests his cheek against her hip. His eyes fall closed, and she wonders belatedly how long he slept. _If_ he slept. “Don’t have to decide anything right now.” 

They don’t, she reminds herself. She sets the coffee aside and slithers down the headboard. She shoves at him. Manhandles his heavy limbs as he grumbles and protests until they’re a comfortable jumble of body parts and warmth and breath. He’s already asleep, and there’s something fizzingly pleasant in being the one to watch him for once. Something more intriguing than the whole other side of the world put together.

“Not right now,” she echoes, falling into the moment. “We’ve got time.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be three chapters. I should have the other two up today.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's staring at him. Her eyes are huge and bright, too close to focus on. Too beautiful, and he wonders, as he sometimes does on waking, if he's dead. If the last year and then some never happened at all. It's not every morning, anymore. It's not five, ten, fifteen times a night. It’s less and less and less often, but sometimes he wonders still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, also a thousand words.

Snow was falling,   
so much like stars  
filling the dark trees  
that one could easily imagine  
its reason for being was nothing more  
than prettiness.

— Mary Oliver

* * *

 

 

 

She's staring at him. Her eyes are huge and bright, too close to focus on. Too beautiful, and he wonders, as he sometimes does on waking, if he's dead. If the last year and then some never happened at all. It's not every morning, anymore. It's not five, ten, fifteen times a night. It’s less and less and less often, but sometimes he wonders still. 

"Kate." 

He doesn't mean it to be a question, but it comes out that way. It brings her brows together in a frown. 

"Expecting someone else?" She flicks his ear, fierce with him already, and he wonders about that. Wonders in a groggy, distant sort of way that's pleased. Hopeful. Fierce is good. 

"Never." His voice is gravel, and he can't think why. He can’t think at all, really. ”Not for the rest of my life." 

"Good answer." She grins at him. She ducks her head and nips at his shoulder. “And first thing out of a sound sleep. Impressive.” 

She sounds pleased with herself. Pleased with the world in general, and it tugs at him like gravity. It draws him toward her, heavy as he is with sleep. 

She’s on her belly, at a diagonal to the bed. Her hair falls over he shoulder, half across her face. She's still in her slouchy clothes. A shirt of his tugged on over the long-sleeved thing she woke up in, and he wonders how much of the day he's managed to sleep away. 

The curtains are closed behind her. The wide window hidden, so there’s no help there. It’s not what interests him anyway. How little daylight might be left. He’s interested in how much more of it he can talk her into sleeping away with him. He's wondering, but she puts the kibosh on that. 

"Today," she says. It comes out tentative, though she'd meant it as a dictate. He can tell right away. She follows it up with a glare, like it's his fault, and he's happy enough to take the blame. Happy enough to have her fierce like this. "Tonight. I want to go tonight." 

"Tonight." 

His stomach takes a run and tumble as he echoes her. He's excited. He's afraid. He's sure he'll trip and fall and . . . go over a cliff or something. That she will. He’ll reach for her and his fingers will close around empty air. It’s the nightmares, but not _just_ that, because this is crazy. It's utterly crazy. 

A year ago, he had to sneak from his own hospital bed into hers. Two hallways and a half flight of stairs that took him twenty minutes on a good night. Six months ago, the subway stairs were a major achievement. The corner store and careful, _careful_ strolls around the neighborhood for groceries, for coffee, for a blessed hour out in the open. Six months ago—five, four, three—they were all cause for celebration, and now they're here in the absolute back of beyond. Him and her and the little hitchhiker no one else knows about yet. They're on the other side of the world on the longest night of the year, and they're _doing_ this. 

"Tonight," he says again. He’s fierce, too, because he has to be. Because this is how they live. 

"Yeah?" She gives him a smile. Not just any smile. The  great big, broad one that's a little dorky. "Not gonna drag your feet?" 

“Me?” he scoffs. “Foot dragging?” 

“You.” She pitches her voice low. A doofy imitation of him that softens right away. “You’re worried.” 

“I’m a little worried.” He doesn’t bother denying it. It’s a hold over from recovery. Clumsy honesty when they were both too exhausted to dissemble. Or maybe it’s more than that. He lets his head fall to the side to meet her steady gaze, and he thinks that finally, after everything they’ve been through, it’s more. “There’s a mountain out there, Beckett. An actual mountain. And dark. Like . . . _dark_ dark. I’m from _New York._ ” He thrusts his hand toward her, a helpless, all-encompassing gesture. “We’re _all_ from New York. We don’t do dark. We don’t even know what dark _is_!”

She says nothing for a long moment. She studies him like she wants to be sure he’s worn himself out. That he’s bled off whatever needs bleeding, and he has. He finds, suddenly, that he has. 

“Shouldn’t one of us be worried?” It’s a perfunctory question. There’s calm beneath it. Profound ease with where he’s landed, but she answers anyway. 

“Usually me.” She hauls herself up on her elbows. She army crawls closer to him. She looms, and he has to tip his head way back to look at her. She crosses her eyes. Makes him laugh then drops a kiss on his chin. “Everything’s upside down here.” 

“Everything.” He twists and knocks her knees out from under her. Rolls her back to his front and scrubs his cheek against her shoulder blade, like he can will the last tendrils of sleep away like that. Like he can will himself right out of the bed. It’s a losing strategy, though. The scent of her and him mingles on his shirt. He presses his face into it and fumbles for her wrist. “Time?” 

“Just after two,” she says sharply, snatching it back. Her watch. Oh. He took her watch earlier. He hid it so she’d sleep, and he’ll pay for that at some point. "We can do it. We have to get going, but we can do it." 

"We can." He winds his arms tighter around her. He lets his lips travel along her shoulder. Up her neck until he finds bare skin and feels her breath catch. "We've got time, though." He drags the flat of his teeth along the curve of her ear, and she stills. The tension goes out of her all at once and he knows the magic word. He whispers it again and again. ”Time, Beckett. Lots and lots and lots of time." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just have to edit the third chapter, to see how stubborn Brain is about making all three 1000 words each. Thanks for reading.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gearing up is ridiculous. The gadgets and provisions. The layers and layers of fleece-lined everything. The over-the-top faux-fur trim around his hood. Around her hood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter. In trying to cut 100 words, Brain!Poneh somehow added 600.

What good is

the warmth of summer,

without the cold of winter

to give it sweetness?   

— John Steinbeck

* * *

 

 

Gearing up is ridiculous. The gadgets and provisions. The layers and layers of fleece-lined everything. The over-the-top faux-fur trim around his hood. Around _her_ hood. 

  
“Where . . .?” She holds the coat at arm’s length. Stares down at a pair of massively shaggy boots and can’t decide if they belong on a fashion-show runway or in some documentary about a forgotten mountaintop people.  “When . . .?” 

She surveys pile after pile of what he’s assured her are absolute necessities, and she can’t imagine where it all came from. They’ve been here a day and a half. Two days, and even if she’s dozed through most of it—even if she’d slept solidly through the longest stretch of hours in who knows how many months—she can’t imagine where it’s all been. How it all got here. 

“All year,” he says over his shoulder. He’s on his knees, tying something down. Or untying it.  It’s hard to tell when everything is unfamiliar. “Ever since that night.”

She knows the night he means. It rises up on the back of her neck. Disinfectant and sickly light. The awful hospital bed and trying so hard to wait for him. To keep her eyes open until he made his way to her.

“But we didn’t even decide until . . .” She whips her head toward him, eyes narrowing as the pieces slide into place. 

“ _You_ didn’t decide until . . .” He trails off dramatically, mimicking her open-mouthed shock. “ _We_ decided that night. You just had to catch up.” He grins down at whatever he’s messing with. “It’s all about patience with you, Beckett.” 

“You made me talk you into it!” Her foot shoots out. She kicks at his hand. He drops back on to his heels, still smiling up at her as she sputters and gropes for words. “You went on and on about how it was too much of a risk to be that far from the hospital. From all the stupid specialists. You sent me all those articles about long flights and high altitude and blood clots and . . . and . . . pregnancy and air travel and cosmic freaking radiation!” 

“You had some things to work through.” He catches her foot this time. He snags her by the hip and brings her tumbling into his lap. He bands his arms around her and ducks his head to press a kiss to her ribs. To one of her many scars. "I had some things to work through. But we decided that night.” 

“On this?” She nudges one stupid boot with her toe. They all fall, toppling like stone-age dominoes. 

“On everything,” he answers, knowing better than she does what she’s really asking. Resting a palm low on her belly. 

“Everything.” She presses her hand over his. She lets her head fall to his shoulder and feels the thump of his heart in the silence. Feels the rush and flutter of nerves and the nearly forgotten kind of fear that’s rich and dark on her tongue. “We decided.” 

 

* * *

 

He pulls the door tight behind them. It’s a solid, decisive sound, and the hush it gives way to is absolute. It fills his ears and presses in on him. He’s afraid. Almost afraid, but she slips her hand into his, bare skin to bare skin. She got stubborn about the gloves. Fierce about half the things he tried to insist on. It reminds him of the first time she took him out on her bike. 

It’s absurd, really. Nothing in this place—this moment—could be more different than the roar of the engine as she opened it up. The sticky heat pouring off them in spite of the wind, and the rumble and tilt of the whole world as she took the curve of the road too fast. Just fast enough. Nothing could be more different except that slice of excitement right through the center of him. That feeling of finally _living._

They set out. Slow steps with the wide beam of their flashlights sweeping the ground before them. It’s daunting. Their absurd little cottage is at the absolute edge of what town there is to speak of, and the path from their door winds straight up into the trees. 

“Break,” he’s panting before too long. Sorry for the way it shatters the silence, but his blood is pounding. He’s sweating and bitterly thirsty. 

“Break.” She sags against a tree trunk. 

There’s a smile on her face. He can’t see anything but their feet, but he knows. He leans into her and swipes a kiss across it. He fishes the water bottle from the pack she’d allowed him and presses it into her hands. She catches the corner of his lip with her teeth, annoyed with him for it. Grateful to him, so he gives a little, too. 

“Too hot for these.” 

He tugs at her coat zipper. Tugs at his own and shrieks when she whisks up the hem of his innermost shirt to press her freezing cold fingers  to his ribs.  

“Way too hot,” she agrees, her voice lilting wickedly. “Need gloves though.” 

She paws shamelessly at him. She pats every last pocket, though she knows damned well he has them. She knows damned well exactly where they are, but she’s taking her time about it, torturing him. Soothing him and slinging her arm around his waist. Hauling his arm around her shoulders. They make their way on, even though the path is hardly wide enough for two. 

 _Three,_ he thinks, grinning in the dark. 

They make their way slowly, and the trees thin. The ground levels off into scrubby, stubborn grass, and with breath-taking suddenness they’re surrounded by more sky than he’s ever imagined. More sky than he dreamed there could possibly be. It’s violet and jade and indigo and milk white. It’s dusty and shockingly bright, like vast expanses of brilliant silk interrupted in the distance by the velvet black of the higher peaks around them. 

It’s all-encompassing dark and brilliant light all at once. Profound silence and the deep, pulsing sound of the world turning. It’s a crushing weight. Too much, as she wanders away from him. As she steps carefully to the full length of her arm and his, their gloved fingertips just touching. It’s taking him to his knees. It’s just about to when she rushes back into him.

Her body collides full on with his. Her head tips all the way back. She’ll fall if he doesn’t catch her, but the thought never occurs to her. He _does_ catch her. She catches him, and they’re alone. Beautifully alone but for the stars. 

  
“Castle, it’s . . .” 

She doesn’t have words. Doesn’t expect him to have any, and thank God. He wouldn’t know where to begin. 

“It is,” he whispers. “It is.”  

* * *

 

They wind up on the ground, a thin blanket form his pack and their stupid, too-hot jackets spread beneath them. It’s a perfect world. Dark and quiet and deliciously cool, with the night just skating over her skin. Gliding over her cheeks and neck, and when it’s too much, she presses into the warmth of his body.

“What?” he asks softly, half a second before she’s about to speak. 

“I want to come back,” she answers, not bothering to wonder how he knows. How he always knows. 

“We can.” He’s smiling at the thought. She can hear it. She can feel the corners of his mouth turn up where his jaw rests against her temple. “Tomorrow and the night after and the night after that . . .” 

“No.” She rolls on to her side. She glances over her shoulder, loath to look away from the sky even for a second. “I mean, yes. Tomorrow and the next night and . . . right up until we have to get on the damned plane.” 

“We don’t have to . . .” His head pops up from the blanket.

“We do.” She kisses him. Hard for silence. Soft, because he’s not alone in that particular fantasy. Not entirely alone. “We have to get on the plane. But I want to do this . . . not backwards.” 

“Backwards?” He settles back again, sulking a little, but trying to make light of it. “Tired of being Ginger? Because I can be Ginger.” 

“You’d be a great Ginger.” She laughs. “But I mean it. This is . . .” She falls to her back and flings her arms wide, wishing she could just breathe it in. Dark and light and silence and them. “Well, it’s _your_ job to say what this is.” 

“Oh, thanks, Fred.” He grabs blindly and catches her wrist. Nips at it, then tugs. He rolls them nose to nose. “You want summer,” he says softly. His gaze drifts from hers up to the sky. His face is alight. In awe. “Me too.” 

“Not this year.” The words come rushing out of her. She feels her skin flushing, and the words just come _rushing_ out into the night. “I mean we can’t . . .  I’ll be huge”  He laughs at that. Her hand comes up, lightning fast and headed straight for his ear, but he’s quicker than she is this time. He kisses her palm and holds fast, and she’s caught up in her own thoughts anyway. Her own, sudden, appalling thoughts. “Or she might be here by then . . . Castle. December. She might . . .”

The words dry up all at once. They’re there, pressing at her to get out, and then they’re just gone. But that’s his job, anyway, and he doesn’t fail her. He never fails her. 

“Next year.” He tells her. He tells the night sky. “Her first birthday. We’ll give her the stars.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading

**Author's Note:**

> This will be three chapters. I should have the other two up today.


End file.
